Recent content by airbrush

I think we would be extremely foolish to become directly involved in the situation in Syria. For centuries the Middle East has been a quagmire of tribal disputes, warring factions, murky alliances, ulterior motives, and other violent behavior all wrapped up in (and often justified and sanctioned...

If you haven't seen this, it is an outstanding film. I get tears in my eyes every time I watch it.... http://grayeagles.org/video.html

Sad part is, even Piedmont is facing tough competition from a variety of vendors for station ops work. They recent lost a bid to handle Air Tran in LGA to one of 13 other companies that were competing for the contract. At my station (and probably others), the person deicing your plane could...

There were a total of 8 diversions...the four A330s mentioned, as well as an A321. a 319, and two RJs. The crew on the 321 did time out due to the mechanical issue and MTC had to drive in from PHL to fix it.

It's all relative; PDT has recently LOST some bids for ground handling work because other contractors were CHEAPER. And from what I've heard from friends who work in other industries where their medical coverage costs are rising and benefits dwindling, PDT's medical coverage is pretty decent...

On another note, what is the real basis for the rumors of PIT going to Express? I've heard speculation on that before, but I've never seen any specific statement or other reference to substantiate it. I've also heard that union contracts currently in place would prevent that, but we've also seen...

ALL CRJ 900's operated as US Airways Express are flown by Mesa Air Group, regardless of where they fly....no other contract or wholly-owned flys them. Air Wisconsin only operates CRJ 200s, and PSA only operates CRJ 200/700. PDT handles any and/or all of them on the ground, depending on the...

I had heard that as well, but had never seen it in print or confirmed by other than word of mouth. The world could get very complicated for all of us soon, depending on how this shakes out. One things seems certain, Parker & Tilton want to merge with SOMEBODY, and will keep pitching until they...

This is correct. PDT does NOT fly anything other than Dash 8 100/300s, and due to scope issues and other factors it is debatable if they ever will. PDT has been picking up ground handling business lately, including American Eagle's recent return to MDT and a shuffle of stations with another...

Interesting cut-n-paste on my words, but my point was that mainline is NOT losing jobs in MDT; PDT is not "taking over", but are gaining jobs that didn't exist before through a contract with AE. I don't know if mainline even tried to bid for them. This may all change at some time in the future...

MDT is mainline for ticket counter and gate, and PDT for ramp. Mainline is not affected by this. American Eagle will start service with three roundtrips a day to ORD on April 6th, and PDT will take over both ramp and gate for AE flights only. Assumedly it made more economic sense for AE to...

For those not familiar with Airventure/Oshkosh, it is like Woodstock for aircraft held every summer. It's an incredible event; here's a video to describe it: http://www.eaa.org/spiritmovie/

I actually heard that this rumor is in circulation...that mainline will be out of PIT this year and the whole station "expressed". No facts or documentation (that I know of) to back it up, but for those of us who remember PIT from the 80s and 90s, with I think 500 flights/day, it seems almost...

With PDT already providing ramp and gate services in stations where no PDT aircraft ever lands (like STL, and including a recent bid for Tucson), it makes you wonder if they aren't being positioned to be the station ops arm of Express division. I think they own something like 33 Dashes, which...

Another issue in this equation is that, although the total number of aircraft in the combined ALG/PDT fleet will be 82, a number of those (not quite sure how many, or when) are approaching 40,000 flight hours, at which point a major airframe inspection is mandated. Everyone I have spoken to in...